A GIS-based Dynamic Shortest Path Determination in Emergency Vehicles

Accomplishing an effective routing of emergency vehicle will minimize its response time and will thus improve the response performance. Traffic congestion is a critical problem in urban area that influences the travel time of vehicles. The aim of this study is developing a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for emergency vehicle routing. The proposed system is based on integration of geospatial information system (GIS) and real-time traffic conditions. In this system dynamic shortest path is used for emergency vehicle routing. This study investigates the dynamic shortest path algorithms and offers an applicable solution for emergency routing. The shortest path applied is based on Dijkstra algorithm in which specific rules have been used to intelligently update the proposed path during driving. Results of this study, illustrate that dynamic vehicle routing is an efficient solution for reduction of travel time in emergency routing. Finally, it is shown that using GIS in emergency routing offers a powerful capability for network analysis, visualization and management of urban traffic network. Spatial analysis capabilities of GIS are used to find the shortest or fastest route through a network. These capabilities of GIS for analyzing spatial networks enable them to be used as decision support systems (DSSs) for dispatching and routing of emergency vehicles.